Wow! It’s been a crazy week and I have so much to catch you up on! First though, thanks so much to Peanut Butter Runner for posting such an awesome inspiring post for me while I was gone. Her blog is definitely a motivation and I wish we lived closer!

Now… more about our vacation. If you didn’t know Clark and I set sail last week from New Orleans on a 5-day Carnival Cruise to Progreso and Cozumel, Mexico.

To avoid having five kagillion pictures to post at once and causing you unnecessary misery, I’m going to divide my vacation post into three parts: Photos from the Ship, Progreso and then Cozumel.

In a 4th post I’m going to go over everything I learned and thought about cruising…Cruising 101 if you will. There are so many things I wish I had known prior to sailing, but didn’t even know to ask. So, just in case you’re considering a cruise vacation for yourself, I hope I can share some helpful tips about what I learned that will make your cruise week the best ever!

Our room (interior with no window). Yes, it’s tiny and that’s the one thing I had heard from so many other people was just how small it was, but it honestly didn’t bother us at all. Now…having said that, if I ever cruised again, I’d love to have a cabin with its own balcony, just to have some fresh air and a place to retrieve without a couple of thousand people around. 😉 On the positive side, because we were almost dead center of the ship, we hardly felt any movement at all.

I’m proud to say that we kept right on schedule with our running/training schedule. I was kinda nervous and wasn’t sure how I would do on a treadmill, but I think I did better than running on our road! And with a view like this, the time flew by!

The ship had many decks and this is one of the decks where we sat and had our breakfast and lunch. We couldn’t get over just how blue the water is.

This is the main deck that includes a pool, hot tub, bar, two buffets, lots of lounge chairs and tables…oh and a stage for music and dancing and games, too!

One of the nightly shows we enjoyed most was the karaoke time. We laughed so hard listening to all the guests trying to sing each night; it was hysterical!

Inside the Grand Atruim. Crazy to think the Carnival Ecstasy has 12 stories and is like an all inclusive city that happens to be traveling in the middle of the ocean.

More views from the forward of the ship. We stood on the upper deck many times, just listening and watching. It was incredible to feel so small in such a big world. We watched tons of flying fish, jelly fish and dolphins swim by.

We had fine dining each night with a formal night on one of those nights. Our assigned table was beautifully set for us and we had the same wait staff and also sat with the same guests each night. It was fun getting to know the other couple who shared our table. They were from San Diego also celebrating their wedding anniversary. We couldn’t have been paired with a better couple!

That’s it for Part 1. Part 2 will be posted on Tuesday and will include our pictures from Progreso.